Guj govt to move SC in Haren Pandya murder case

Ahmedabad: Gujarat government today informed the High Court that it would move the Supreme Court against its order of dropping murder charges against the accused in the Haren Pandya murder case.

“The state government is going to appeal the Gujarat high court order of 29 August 2011 in the Supreme Court,” the special public prosecutor JM Panchal representing the state government told justice RH Shukla who was hearing the petition of Pandya’s wife demanding re-investigation in the case.

Jagruti Pandya, wife of Haren, a former Minister of State for Home in Gujarat’s BJP government, had filed a petition in the High Court last week seeking reinvestigation in the murder of her husband who was shot dead on 26 March 2003 when he had gone for a morning walk.

Gujarat High Court in its order on 29 August dropped charges of murder against 12 persons convicted for the killing of Haren Pandya while upholding the charges of criminal conspiracy and terrorism under POTA against them awarded by the trial court.

Referring to Jagruti Pandya’s petition demanding reinvestigation, Panchal argued that it was a little premature at this time as the period to file appeal against the order in the higher forum is not over.

CBI counsel Yogesh Ravani informed the court that the CBI was also considering to file appeal against the high court order and a decision on it would be taken soon. He also suggested that Jagurti Pandya’s petition be heard only after the appeal period gets over.

After hearing the statements of the state government and CBI, Jagruti Pandya’s counsel S V Raju agreed that the matter could be heard after some time. The court adjourned the matter to first week of December.

Raju further informed the court that his client has already made a representation to the CBI for further investigations in her husband’s murder case. He also asked CBI to consider the representation by Jagurti Pandya at the earliest and argued that the present petition filed in the High Court should not come in the way of considering that representation.

The High Court division bench of Justice DH Waghela and Justice JC Upadhyaya delivering the Haren Pandya verdict had also came down heavily on the CBI and called its investigation ‘botched up’ and ‘blinkered’.

PTI